WH: BUSH HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DOJ FIRINGS

Because Pres. Fredo is threatening to invoke executive privilege to prevent Sara Taylor, a former aide to Karl Rove and former Director of the White House Office of Political Affairs, from testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I decided to see if there were any grounds for this refusal.

This excerpt from a WH press briefing of 3/13/2007 indicates that there were no discussions with the President about the firings of the attorneys:

MR. BARTLETT: And at no time did the White House bring to or edit or modify or add to or subtract from the list of seven U.S. attorneys. We ultimately approved or signed off on the list when that was completed by the Department of Justice. But those were decisions that are appropriately made at the Department of Justice.

MR. BARTLETT: I think it's very important, Kelly, to make a distinction between what we knew and what role we played. And right there, I think is where this can be very complicated, because there's a clear distinction between having approved of a list, and playing a role in the compilation of the seven U.S. attorneys. The White House did not play a specific role in the list of the seven U.S. attorneys.

Q But wasn't their knowledge beyond Kyle Sampson? People in the White House Counsel's Office understood that they had participated in this process, and Congress was not properly informed of that.

MR. BARTLETT: Again, "participated in the process" is inaccurate because --

Q But just to clarify, so in October the President was not informed about anything going on in terms of a removal process?

MR. BARTLETT: That's correct.